I finally played it. Played all day for two days in a row. Beat it with 50% items and 6:03 on the clock.
Funny how there actually was a Rastasuit with an Iriebeam at the end... It really is metroid Dreadloc!
So here's my review thesis: It **_would_** be the best Metroid game ever if it was made by the original creators at R&D1.
Lots of wish fulfillment here. I always wanted more Chozo stuff, the new dash cements my theory that Chozo are basically ALIEN SOLDIER. The rastasuit at the end was cool.
Sometimes, the writing was slightly stoopid, and other times, it was cool in a fanfic kind of way. There's a couple times they spelled things out too much and it seemed dumb. For example, in Metroid Fusion, you unlock a gate, and upon returning to earlier areas, notice there are now different X creatures there where before there may not have been any, and you realize that as you progress and unlock gates, you're allowing the X to spread. In Dread, I saw this coming, of course, when I entered an area with X, so it felt very dumb when they had a cutscene showing the stupid gummy bears flying away afterwards. It would have been so much cooler without the cut scene, because walking forward two steps there are X infesting the railcar area.
Having Samus speak Chozo was dope. The location of Kraid's chamber was dope. I wonder how many of these ideas were from way back when the original Metroid Project Dread began development in 2004 while R&D1 was still at it's peak performance, having made Zero Mission, and how many were from mercury. Reading the credits, it seems like 90% mercury work, with three Japanese people consulting.
The music and sound effects were also quite good through each area, exceptional in fact. (the ending music didn't do it for me like it usually would though.)
What really matters though, is that speeding around traversing areas and blasting stuff felt really good. I played nonstop the past two days. I won't replay it, that'd be giving it too much credit, but the one playthrough was quite enjoyable.
Also I agree with exodus, Adam's voice didn't make sense to me. It's the future, yet, in the present year 2022, we have AI that sounds indiscernible from real speech. I doubt samus would prefer the drone over a pleasant gentleman guiding her as a buddy.
That's an example of the writing feeling like it came from total nerdo dweebs. Sometimes cool, sometimes more than slightly stoopid. This must be how fans of Star Wars feel, wishing their beloved childrens story would be elevated to a higher quality, and while sometimes it's pretty cool and dark and better, it never hits the mark of good, smart sci fi. The R&D1 games had more restraint. The Chozo were awesome, and I always wanted more. The way they did evil chozo and tribes and society and stuff just feels like a Star Wars move, for better or worse.
Also: what the heck this raven beak mean when he said he can now clone samus?? How??
edit: Final thing, I've seen a lot of people say they're burnt out on ""metroidvanias"" due to market saturation. Well, I always loved Metroid, Castlevania, Wario Land, Cave Story (played in 2006) etc. but as this huge wave of ""metroidvanias"" hit, I didn't feel any need to play any of them, because none of them spoke to me. Guacamelee, Hollow Knight, whatever, none of it was really for me, so I never got burnt out, just side eyed all these releases. I can count on one hand how many Indie games I've played through. I am only interested in indies that provide a new experience, not a lesser version of something I have or can experience on older hardware. So I feel as though I'm judging Dread as the 20 year wait for a Metroid game that it was... Aside for 3DS Samus Returns.